We all receive unsolicited pings every once in a while from spammers and random, unknown numbers. Even if you have one of the best Android phones or the best iPhones on the market, it’s inevitable that you’ll receive spam messages. While text messages aren’t as annoying as telemarketing calls, they can still get on your nerves by cluttering your inbox with their sheer volume. Not to mention, a lot of these spam messages pose a security threat as they often carry a link that they want you to click.

It’s always best to delete these spam messages as you receive them. But if you don’t want to go through the hassle of dealing with them all the time, then there are ways with which you can filter these spam messages and even block them from getting through to your phone. In this article, we’ll tell you how to block spam messages on your phone, both for Android and for iPhones.

Navigate this article:

How to block spam messages on Android

Blocking spam messages on Android phones is more difficult than it is on iPhones. We say that because of the sheer number of Android phones out there with customized skins on top of the vanilla Android experience. We will, however, try to simplify the process and present an easy and reliable workaround to block spam messages effectively on Android phones.

The first thing we recommend you to do is download the Google Messages app on Android. This particular application is pre-installed on Pixel devices, but you’ll have to download it manually from the Google Play Store on other devices from the likes of Samsung, Vivo, and more. Google Messages app comes with a Spam Protection feature that works surprisingly well to keep spam messages at bay.

Messages (Free, Google Play) →

There are a few different ways to get rid of spam messages using the Google Messages app, so let’s take a look:

  • Once you’ve downloaded the latest version of Google Messages from the Play Store, open the app and tap on the Account button, and look for an option names Messages settings.
  • Now, scroll down until you find the Spam protection option.
  • Tap on it and toggle Enable spam protection on.

This particular option will start flagging spam messages and even blocking them from spamming you in the future. It works for the most part but there are times when some numbers can get past Google Messages’ spam filter. Luckily, you can catch these numbers rather easily thanks to the spam filter doing the heavy lifting to keep your inbox clutter-free. If a particular number bypasses the built-in spam filter or if you happen to receive spam messages from a specific unknown number, then here’s how you can report spam texts on Android:

How to report spam text on Android phones

  • Simply locate the spam text in your inbox and tap and hold that particular message.
  • Once selected, tap on the three dots icon to open the menu in the top right corner of the screen.
  • From here, tap on the Block option.

Google Messages will automatically move the message to the ‘Spam and blocked’ list, preventing it from sending text messages or calling you in the future. Additionally, you can check the ‘Report as spam’ option to send that particular number to Google as well as your operator.

If you don’t want to use Google Messages on, say, a Samsung phone, then we suggest you explore your native messaging app and look for an option to block spam messages. Almost all custom skins including Samsung’s One UI come with built-in Spam protection features to prevent spam messages from getting through to your inbox. Samsung’s Galaxy S22 running One UI 4.1 comes with a feature that lets you block numbers and spam within the Messages app. Here’s how you can access it:

  • Tap on the three-dot menu on the top right corner of the screen to open a list of menu items.
  • Now, tap Settings and look for an option named Block numbers and spam and enable Caller ID and spam protection. You can also use this option to block spam calls.

How to block spam messages on iPhone

It’s relatively easier to restrict spam messages on iPhones. That’s because ‘Messages’ is the default messaging app across all iOS devices. It also helps that enabling a simple message filtering option on iPhones can stop spam messages from getting through to your primary inbox. Here’s how to block spam messages on your iPhone with the Message filtering option:

  • Open the Settings app and go to Messages.
  • In the Messages option, look for an option named Filter Unknown Senders and enable it.
  • Now, go back to your Messages app to see a bunch of options that let you select which messages you want to see. Select Known Senders to only see messages from your saved contacts or the ones you’ve texted before.

You can always come back to this menu and choose to see messages from unknown senders too. We suggest you keep an eye on this particular tab because it also includes messages from banks and other organizations that might send important messages like a transaction alert or a verification code. So if you’re expecting an important notification from an unknown sender, then keep an eye on this tab. You can also choose to view All Messages at once too, but this view will also include all the spam messages.

Alternatively, you can also block individual numbers on iOS to entirely stop receiving messages or phone calls from that particular number. Here’s how you can do this:

  • Firstly, locate a conversation with the contact you want to block.
  • Now, tap on the contact at the top, then tap the Info button, scroll down, and tap Block this Caller. Once blocked, you won’t get notifications when they spam you with text messages.

Well, that pretty much wraps up this tutorial explaining how to block spam messages on your Android phone or an iPhone. Before we share our closing thoughts on this topic, however, there’s one last thing we wanted to highlight — using third-party apps to block spam messages.

Third-party apps to block spam messages on your phone

There’s no shortage of third-party apps on both Android as well as iOS that lets you block spam messages on your phone. Apps like Truecaller, RoboKiller, and SMS Shield are some of the names that are quite popular among users out there. Many of these third-party apps do a better job of filtering and blocking unsolicited messages, but they also seek permission to access your call logs, messages, contacts, and more. That’s one of the reasons why we haven’t recommended any third-party application to block spam messages in this tutorial. If that doesn’t bother you then feel free to check out some third-party apps that’ll help you filter spam messages more effectively.

Closing Thoughts

Both Android and iOS have improved a lot over the years and are more effective now when it comes to filtering and blocking spam messages. There’s always more room for improvement but we’re expecting to see more ways to filter and block spam messages in the future versions of both Android and iOS. We’ll try to revisit this article once we get our hands on the final versions of Android 13 and iOS 16, so keep your peeled.

In the meantime let us know how you filter and block spam messages on your phone? We’ll take a look at your comments and try to include some of the more effective methods in this post in the future.

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This content was originally published here.